Minimally invasive esophagectomy with and without gastric ischemic conditioning.

Background: Esophagectomy can be associated with significant morbidity such as leaks and strictures. Preoperative gastric ischemic conditioning is a concept aimed at inducing an ischemic insult to the gastric fundus and cardia prior to esophagectomy, thus leading to improvement of gastric perfusion.

Methods: This retrospective study compared outcome data from 81 patients who underwent esophagectomy after laparoscopic gastric ischemic conditioning with that from 71 patients who underwent esophagectomy without conditioning. Gastric ischemic conditioning consisted of laparoscopic division of the left gastric vessels ± the short gastric vessels. The time interval from gastric ischemic conditioning to esophagectomy ranged from 2 to 75 days. Main outcome measures included demographics, mean time interval between staging and esophagectomy, and the rate of leaks and strictures following esophagectomy.

Results: The two groups were comparable with respect to gender and age. In the gastric ischemic conditioning procedures, there were no conversions; the mean operative time was 57 ± 15 min, the mean length of hospital stay was 1.0 ± 1.1 days, and the rate of postoperative complications was 3.7%. The mean time interval between gastric ischemic conditioning and esophagectomy was 6.0 ± 5.4 days. There were no significant differences in the leak rate (11.1% for conditioning vs. 8.5% without conditioning) or stricture rate (29.6% for conditioning vs. 25.3% without conditioning) between the two groups.

Conclusions: Laparoscopic gastric ischemic conditioning is feasible and safe. However, the use of gastric ischemic conditioning in this study did not alter the clinical rate of postoperative leaks and strictures.